


Post-Pipeline

by DestinyFreeReally



Category: Archer (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:54:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyFreeReally/pseuds/DestinyFreeReally
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set right after Pipeline Fever (in S2).... Lana goes back for Archer after leaving him in the swamp. Probably a few chapters cause I'm Sterling/Lana trash....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     "Even though he seems like kind of an asshole?" Lana had tucked Josh into a cab, alone, and decided she had to go back for Archer. It was the right thing, she reminded herself again and again. And again.   
     "He is kind of an asshole. A pretty big asshole." _The right thing,_ Lana thinks again, like a mantra. "But we have history... it's not all bad. Plus I stranded him surrounded by at least one, maybe two?, of his biggest fears, so..." But the asshole burned her hands and sunk the airboat with the blown engine. Wasn't it time he stewed in his own luck for awhile? It was getting dark, though. Lana was pretty sure alligators were way hungrier at night. Even if they _rarely_ ate people and Archer was probably drunk, waiting on an evac helicopter his mom could muster for him this time.   
      "Some other time then, Lana?" His voice brought her back to before ISIS, a time in college when she had been principled and fearless and...well, a completely different person. Josh hadn't been Lana's first  _everything_ , but he'd been one of the first men in her life who didn't ask her to subdue her ideologies, didn't ask her to keep her voice down. Not that Archer ever asked her to do _that_....With Josh everything was acceptable, she'd found herself competing for the first time in a game of who-could-be-more-radical. And apparently if pipeline bomb to-do lists were any fair indication, she would've continued to lose _that_ game even with out ISIS intervention.   
     "Yeah, some other time you need to be talked off a ledge, okay, Grey?" She offered him a soft smile and watched the cab drive off, contemplating how much she should've asked Josh about his next mission. She gave him a head start for old times' sake. Plus hopefully he was actually doing environmental causes some good.   
     With the airboat in a distinctly Archer brand of out-of-commission, Lana had to borrow the pontoon of one of Josh's contacts. Significantly slower, but hey, was she really in a _rush_? Some time later, she arrived back at the pipeline's checkpoint and was already wishing she had driven the boat slower. Archer was laying flat on is back, presumably drunk, naked, surrounded by clumps of dry ice humming what she could only identify as 'Danger Zone' to himself.  _Couldn't just get in the freakin' cab._  
     " _Lana?_ " Feigned surprise and disinterest he barely looked at her approaching on a, dear god was that a pontoon? No wonder it took her so long. He _knew_ she would've come back for him. It had started feeling like a long shot and he almost called an evac helicopter but, good ole' Lana. "So tree-hugger-Mc-Beard blew you off?"  _Disinterest_ , he reminded himself, and made a note  _not_ to get redressed before turning to her.  
     "....Why're you naked?" Lana let go of a deep sigh. "I sent  _Josh_ back on his own."  
     "Cause it's hot as dicks out here, Lana, I don't know if you noticed. Aww, his beard must've been so sad. You really dated that eco-fake-terrorist?"


	2. Premature Evacuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting on the evacuation helicopter.

     "You didn't call an emergency evacuation? I left you here alone with only  _beer."_ Lana reminded herself who she was dealing with; he actually thought he was that good. "I literally can't remember why I didn't get in that cab. And if you say-"

     "It's your  _obvious_ lingering attraction and feelings for me, Lana. It's okay, you can stop denying it. I'm ruggedly handsome and incredibly charming. Feel free to get naked... any minute now." Archer popped off two more beer tabs and handed one to Lana's recently unbandaged, but still pretty raw looking hands. "I'm sorry about the dry ice thing. And the water thing." He sighed and swigged his 6% alcohol. _Whopping six percent. "_ And for red lining the airboat and pissing off the alligator. But Lana, you left me here. Like to die, probably by alligator. You could've came back and had to make love to alligator poop." 

     "Well I assumed, stupidly, that you'd call Mallory for an evacuation? You know, that thing that stops you from being alligator poop. Pretty sure that gator was already pissed off, though. Probably mad at chemical dumpers, slowly destroying his food sources and habitats." Lana let her eyebrows do her punctuating and then laid back on the ground next to Archer, who had finally put his damn clothes back on. 

     "Oh stop with the hippie bull crap, would ya? We all were young in college you can stop beating yourself up for letting your life go in a different direction; keep beating yourself up for how long you had that afro, though. Please, please keep doing that." 

     "You asshole." Lana countered, but there was no real punch behind it. Truth was, if there had been approximately five million less mosquitoes in this swamp, Lana could've found this relaxing. 

     "Well yeah, duh, dummy. I'm the asshole, you're the idiot, and together we do totally awesome stuff like stop.... Eco-terrorists from becoming a thing."


	3. A Mission Recap

     "Jeez, Lana, you're like.... Turning green. Seriously, stop it, Lana come on." They'd buckled into the rescue helicopter, hit some pretty intense turbulence, and Lana wasn't looking extremely bang-able right about then.

     "I haven't had anything to eat or drink since our flight, dickbag, besides beer which isn't exactly a great exception right now, on the helicopter ride from, well, hell." She stifled back another gag, cursing herself for at least the hundredth time for not just going back with Josh, the splooshy guy with misguided environmental advocacy.

     "Listen, you two. Next time you ruin your transport home I'm not coming to get you. Especially you, Lana, you know better than this. 'Ole dickbag here just can't help himself. Alligators bring out the goddamn worst in him, to boot. Seriously, what's wrong with you that you wouldn't bring water on a mission?" Ray turned his head to reprimand from the helm of the helicopter, never breaking his focus, but hoping his dissatisfaction with the whole situation was duly noted. 

     "For your information, I did so bring water. I just forgot that I remembered to bring water. Which no one will let me forget about now, so thanks for that." 

     "Ray, just get us home, honey? The mission technically was a success, even if the lead up and the evac was.... Less than," Lana gagged again. "Ideal." She hissed at Archer.

     "Uh, shutup now, please, thank you. We haveta get our story straight for Mother. I took out the terrorist-in-training-wheels and you..... Bitched a lot." He let a light laugh escape and looked to Lana to see if her color had returned. "Oh, and don't forget the throat clearing. You did that, too. Very important spy work, Agent Kane." 

    


End file.
